Rhetorical argumentation in Arab and international discourse regarding the 2023 Gaza war: an analytical study of the rhetorical strategies on the Youm7 and Washington Post websites.

The study aims to monitor the rhetorical strategies in the Arab and Western media discourse regarding the recent Gaza war, considering that rhetorical strategies are among the most important features of global media discourse to achieve specific goals and numerous effects, by formulating the media message in ways and forms that enable the writer to convince the reader of an idea or point of view, based on the arguments and evidence that support it, especially with the development of means of communication and reaching the masses regardless of their times, places, languages, and cultures. The descriptive causal study relied on an integrative approach to discourse analysis, which included analyzing the discourse as a social practice, analyzing rhetorical arguments, and analyzing the framework, as 30 articles were analyzed on the Youm7 and Washington Post websites. The study monitored the explicit employment of several rhetorical strategies in Youm7, which expresses the Egyptian Arab point of view, and the Washington Post website, which expresses the Western, American, and European point of view. It became clear that Youm7 relied on the offensive strategy from the first moment, considering what happened on October 7, 2023, as heroism, steadfastness, honor, and a victory for the suffering of the Palestinians. It also adopted a strategy of accusing the other party, by placing responsibility on Israel is always the cause of crises and wars due to the criminal acts it commits against the Palestinians, while the Western discourse relied on a strategy of defending Israeli narratives and supporting its point of view. It also relied on a strategy of accusing the Palestinians of terrorism and demagoguery, and that they are a source of constant suffering and concern for Israel, which has the right to defend itself and protect its citizens from attacks by Palestinians, especially armed Palestinian factions. The study also monitored the use of arguments and evidence according to the opposing ideologies of the two sides, relying on historical, cultural, religious and social evidence, which came in favor of the Palestinian side, in contrast to the weakness of Western arguments and their attempt to neutralize the evidence and arguments of the Arab discourse.
المزيد